Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Imogene
“You really don’t mind staying in tonight?” I asked Melanie as she plopped beside me on her couch, both of us wearing pajamas, even though it was only seven in the evening.
After this past week, I had no desire to get dressed up and go out to some obnoxiously loud club in Hollywood.
“Of course not.” She handed me an overflowing glass of wine.
I took a tiny sip and placed it on the coffee table. I didn’t feel like drinking. I hadn’t felt like much of anything this week.
“At least here I don’t have to wait in line for a drink and the bartender always has a generous pour.” She smirked, taking a large gulp from her own wine before facing me.
“So tell me… How are things? Despite the obvious with Ollie,” she added quickly with a compassionate smile. “How’s Gideon?”
Just hearing that name sent a sharp pang through my chest. I couldn’t deny that I missed him, but did I miss Gideon? Or Samuel?
“Uh oh.”
I snapped my eyes toward her. “What?”
“Do I sense trouble in hot-sex paradise? Please tell me you didn’t let the whole fingerprint thing interfere with Gideon,” she added, reaching for my hand and squeezing. “Learning Sam’s fingerprints were found at Alton’s cabin must have been a shock, but he’s gone. He?—”
“He is Sam,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
She dropped her hold on me. “Ginny, you heard what all the investigators said.”
I dug my fingers through my hair, messing it up even more. “Trust me, Mel. I was just as surprised as you are. I convinced myself I was losing my mind. But it turns out I was right all along. Gideon Saint is Samuel Tate. He admitted it. Along with a lot of other stuff.”
Silence permeated the room as Melanie stared at me, her jaw agape, barely even blinking for several long moments. I could sense her wanting to chastise me for overreacting once more. But the longer she looked into my eyes, the more she must have realized I wasn’t overreacting.
Even though I wished I were.
“Sam’s alive?” she squeaked out, her shock palpable.
I knew all too well how she felt. I went through the same thing myself.
“Where has he been all this time?”
“A place worse than hell,” I responded through the heaviness in my throat.
She shook her head, her eyes clouded with tears. “I don’t?—”
“I’ll tell you everything, but it needs to stay between us.”
I doubted she’d go to Liam or anyone else with the truth, considering she repeatedly insisted my relationship with him was toxic, something I now fully agreed with. But I couldn’t stomach the idea of anything happening to her because she said something she shouldn’t have.
“No one else can know what I’m about to tell you.” I held her gaze so she could see the importance of this. “Not even your father.”
Although, based on the way he questioned Gideon during the golf tournament, he must have sensed something was amiss. But I doubt he could have predicted this.
“I promise, Gin. Your secrets are safe with me.” She swallowed hard. “So are Sam’s. You can trust me.”
I took a deep breath, then began to unravel the web of secrets I had no choice but to come to terms with over the past few weeks.
How, five years ago, Liam shot him when he refused to sell their company to ImageScape.
How a man named Brian McGuire was hired to take care of the crime scene and leave only enough evidence so Jonah would appear at fault, but when he arrived, Samuel was still alive.
How Brian and James conspired to sell him to a human trafficker in order to make money, still staging the crime scene to make it look like Jonah had shot and killed him to cover their tracks.
How Samuel spent nearly four years fighting for his life in underground death matches broadcast on the dark web.
How, one night, he escaped when the van he was in crashed.
How he found a cabin by a lake where he could get cleaned up and figure out what to do next.
How he called me, but I hung up on him, thinking he was someone trying to play a cruel joke on me.
How he made his way to Atlanta so I could see with my own eyes it was him, even if his face had been beaten and disfigured.
How he saw me with Liam and felt betrayed, considering the role he’d played.
How he went to Henry, who took him in and nursed him back to health.
How all the injuries he suffered required him to endure extensive surgery.
How he decided to change his appearance since he was having facial reconstructive surgery.
How the scars covering his body weren’t from a car accident but were the result of all the torture he endured for years.
How he vowed to make those who betrayed him suffer as he did.
Then I told her how I learned he was Samuel in the first place.
How I noticed similar burns when I was looking at pictures of Samuel the night I learned about his fingerprints being found.
How I accused Gideon of being Samuel after confirming he had marks in the same location.
How he then accused me of only wanting to be with him because he reminded me of Samuel.
How I went to Atlanta to clear my mind.
How Gideon was also there and we both apologized for our behavior.
How, when I left his hotel suite the following morning, I ran into Henry Fontaine getting off the elevator.
How I saw him approach Gideon’s door.
How I followed him, if for no other reason than to dispel my suspicions.
Then how I overheard Gideon admit he was Samuel Tate, confirming what I’d known in my heart all along.
“This is...” Melanie shook her head, searching for the right words to communicate everything she was thinking and feeling after listening to the story I’d kept from her for the past week.
“A lot. I get it. I struggled to believe it all myself. It seemed so far-fetched.”
She snapped her gaze back to mine. “Oh, I definitely believe his story.”
I furrowed my brow. “You do?”
“Don’t you?”
“I do now. At first, I was skeptical. I wanted to believe him, but it was hard after all the lies. So he told me that the next time I saw Liam to mention a detective had reached out to ask me about Samuel Tate’s death.”
“Did you?”
I nodded.
“And Liam?”
“The second I mentioned it and Liam’s face went pale, I knew Samuel was telling the truth. Knew Liam had…” I trailed off, my throat closing up over how blind I’d been. How easily I’d allowed Liam to manipulate me.
Melanie gave my hand another reassuring squeeze. It didn’t escape my notice that she didn’t seem all too surprised to learn this about Liam.
“Karma will make him pay.”
I didn’t have it in me to correct her, remind her it was Gideon — not karma —who would make him pay.
“So where does this leave the two of you?” she asked, taking a small sip of her wine. “After I hunt him down and give him a piece of my mind for lying, of course.”
Normally, I would have found some humor in her words, but right now, I couldn’t even muster a fake laugh.
“There can’t be an us. I thought there could be, but this man he’s become… He’s not the Samuel Tate I fell in love with.”
A long pause settled in her apartment as she digested my words, the only sound the distant hum of traffic from the street below. Then she turned her attention back to me, her brows furrowed and lips pursed.
“Let me see if I have this straight,” she clipped out. “You learn that Samuel Tate is alive after years of wishing he were and you’re just going to…walk away?”
“He’s not Samuel,” I insisted. “He may have the same DNA, but he’s not the same person.”
“But you knew it was him, Gin. Almost from the beginning.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I lowered my voice. “He killed Alton. And that missing funeral director in Atlanta? He was the cleaner James conspired with to sell Samuel. Considering he went missing the same time Gideon just so happened to be in Atlanta, it’s all but a certainty he killed him, too. And I know he also plans on making sure James and Liam die, too.”
“You never would have even considered he was Sam if you didn’t see pieces of him, despite his changed appearance. Would you?”
I parted my lips to argue, but she cut me off once more.
“When you learned he’d been shot and was presumed dead, you would have given anything to have Sam back. Right?”
“You know I would have, but?—”
“Well, he’s back. He might not be the same, but either are you, Gin. You’ve changed since then, too. Everyone has. Everyone changes. That’s part of life. No one stays the same forever. Don’t throw this away because you’re stuck in the past.”
“I’m not stuck in the past.” I jumped to my feet. “If anything, he’s the one stuck in the past. He’s killing people, Melanie. How can you expect me to be okay with that?”
She met my gaze, her expression calm and measured, at odds with the turmoil swirling inside me. “There is no black and white, only varying shades of gray.”
“What does that even mean?” I placed my hands on my hips.
“It’s something my aunt sometimes says,” she explained, standing and walking toward me, running her hands down my arms. “You like to look at the world in absolutes —black and white. Good and bad. Right and wrong. But life doesn’t work that way. Some people do good things for bad reasons. And others do bad things for good reasons.”
Her words reminded me of what Gideon told me when he finally confessed his truth.
“And you think he has a good reason for this?” I shot back incredulously. “For playing God, more or less.”
“I can understand it.”
I shook my head, although I shouldn’t have been surprised by her response. After all, her argument sounded a hell of a lot like the one I’d been having with myself all week.
“He still lied to me,” I stammered out. “How can a relationship possibly work after such a huge betrayal?”
“He had his reasons for lying.”
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “To get into my pants.”
She opened and closed her mouth several times, probably trying to find the best words to tell me I was being irrational.
But I wasn’t.
I was hurt.
Confused.
And a myriad of other emotions I couldn’t even begin to make sense of.
“Did I ever tell you my parents’ story?” she finally asked, moving back to the couch and sitting down.
I joined her. “No.”
“They knew each other when they were kids,” she began. “But when my mom was six, she and her parents were in a car accident. My dad thought she’d died. Turns out, my grandfather purposefully hid her away. So when she and my dad crossed paths again as adults and he realized she was the same girl he thought was dead, he was shocked. Even so, he hid the truth about who they were to each other.”
“Why?”
“To protect her,” Melanie explained. “He figured his father must have had a damn good reason to hide her away and tell him she was dead. And I think the same could be said for Sam. He has a lot of reasons he didn’t want to tell you the truth, some more selfish than others. But I also believe your safety has always been his top priority. Hell, the man snapped some fucker’s neck to save your life. You may think that the man you’ve been spending time with is nothing like the old Sam, but he’s still a good person, even if he is a bit…morally gray.” She paused, narrowing her gaze on me. “He’s not like your sperm donor.”
“But he’s taken lives,” I said softly, renewing my argument. Clinging to it like it was the last lifeboat on the Titanic.
“You knew that before you ever slept with him. You saw him kill a man with his bare hands.”
“That was different,” I argued, albeit rather unconvincingly.
“Are you upset because he’s done bad things?” She gave me a knowing look. “Or because it doesn’t bother you like you wish it did?”
I blinked, my response on the tip of my tongue, but the words wouldn’t come. Not when she’d seen past the carefully constructed fa?ade to the true fear that caused me to push away the one man who’d always owned my heart.
I’d claimed I understood why Samuel was doing this, even if I’d never choose this path. The only reason I struggled with it was because of my biological father. He took lives without remorse and, because of that, he was a bad person.
Samuel took lives, too.
But did that truly make him a bad person?
As much as I wanted to condemn him for his choices, I couldn’t ignore the fact that my mother had taken a life, as well. She’d killed my sperm donor. And not in self-defense, like I’d originally believed.
Instead, my mother knew she’d never be free if she didn’t put an end to him. So she took matters into her own hands. Got herself the justice she and so many of his other victims deserved.
Wasn’t that all Samuel was doing now? Getting himself the justice he desperately deserved?
If I was going to fault him for his actions, I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t find my mother equally guilty.
“He may not look like Samuel anymore, but his heart, his soul…” Melanie clutched my hand in hers. “That’s still Samuel. Maybe it’s a little darker than it used to be, but there’s a little darkness in all of us. Are you really willing to lose him all over again?”
“I…” I squeezed my eyes shut, my thoughts a jumbled mess.
Flashes of memories flooded my mind — moments when it was just us. When he didn’t have to pretend to be someone else in front of Liam or James or even Melanie.
In those quiet moments, he was Samuel, despite his insistence that Samuel was dead.
Maybe he just needed me to show him he was still in there. Show him the things he endured hadn’t destroyed him.
I jumped to my feet, my mind spinning. “I’m sorry. I?—”
“No apologies necessary.” She waved me off as she stood. “Go get your man. And when you’re done screwing his brains out, tell him he owes me a visit. And some of that smoked brisket he used to make. I’ll forgive all his bullshit for some of that.”
“Duly noted,” I said as she enveloped me in a hug before I rushed into the guest bedroom and threw all my things into my bag.
As I drove away from Melanie’s apartment, I tuned out the constant buzz of sirens and helicopters circling overhead. Instead, all my thoughts were of getting to Samuel as quickly as possible and praying it wasn’t too late for us to have a second chance. That he’d forgive me for the perpetual seesaw I’d been on lately.
Reaching a stoplight, I pulled my cell out of my purse and fired off a quick text.
Me:
Is two apology texts in so many weeks bad form? Is it too late for us? Please tell me it isn’t.
Placing my phone on the center console, I held my breath, hoping for a response. Just as the light turned green, three little dots appeared below my sent message, sparking a glimmer of hope inside me.
I stepped on the gas, checking my cell every few seconds, waiting for his reply. The wail of approaching sirens grew closer, and I glanced in my rearview mirror. When I didn’t see any flashing lights, I continued through the intersection, stealing a final look at my cell.
But before I could merge onto the freeway, a black SUV came speeding out of nowhere, slamming into the passenger side door, my car spinning out of control.
Tires squealed. Glass shattered. Metal crunched.
Then everything went dark.